


The Silent Stars Go By

by lotherington



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Advent, Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotherington/pseuds/lotherington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short ficlets for the run-up to Christmas. Some outtakes and extra scenes from 'verses/AUs I've already written, some new AUs and crossovers. I hope you enjoy them!</p><p>Suggestions welcome. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1916

_1st December, 1916._

The skin of John’s hands is cracked across his knuckles. Mud and dirt and blood is sunken in to every cut, every wound. His dull eyes glance up the weaving line of the trench in the grey, pre-dawn light, his breath dancing on the air each time he exhales. The time just before stand-to is always the quietest.

John pulls his trench cap down over his face and crowds against the earth wall to light his cigarette without the sharp breeze extinguishing the flame of his match. He breathes in a lungful of smoke and the smell brings to mind a Parisian hotel room, twisted sheets and fishskin pale, unmarred, lovely limbs and lines and curves. He remembers a tangle of curls and sharp, knowing eyes; reddened, swollen lips holding fast a cigarette.

Another officer bends down and gently shakes his men awake. John fixes his bayonet and climbs up onto the fire guard, December fog surrounding his head like a shroud. Birdsong, punctuated by gunfire. John keeps his head down.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the [I Know Thee, Stranger](http://archiveofourown.org/works/291621) ‘verse: John, Sherlock, Mycroft and Lestrade are archangels.

A violent shudder runs through Sherlock’s wings as he and John materialise in the flat, both dripping wet.

‘My mouth tastes of sewage,’ Sherlock spits, shaking his deep red wings again so that river water from the Thames scatters across their living room. ‘I hate being undercover.’

‘We’re permanently undercover,’ John says in a disbelieving voice, wringing one of his wings out, a puddle forming on the floor.

‘Well, I hate being undercover _today_ ,’ Sherlock grumbles, collapsing in his usual position on the sofa, one sodden arm slung over his eyes. ‘It would have been so much easier to just _fly_ and catch him before he hit the water...’ 

John wills a towel into existence and scrubs it across Sherlock’s hair, kneeling down next to the arm of the sofa to press a kiss to Sherlock’s temple. ‘Christmas miracle, then? Go public like we used to be?’

‘Haven’t got the energy.’

‘Sudden advancement in Science?’

‘The humans are doing perfectly well on their own.’

‘Rapid onset “evolutionary change” to people being born with wings?’

‘Upstairs would never allow it.’

‘Tea and toast, then,’ John says, dropping the towel onto Sherlock’s face.

‘Tea and toast,’ comes the agreement. ‘Next year, we’ll see.’


	3. The Merman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merman!Sherlock.

John slips down to the cove most nights, now. The fishing village in which he lives is sound asleep when John sneaks out of his parents’ cottage, torch in hand, to scramble across the pebbled beach down to where the merman waits.

He’s there, as he always is. Skin almost translucent with how pale it is, gills cutting into his flank, hair falling over one eye.

‘It’s me,’ John calls, and the merman turns, eyes aglow in the moonlight. ‘I’m here.’

‘You are always here.’ The merman smiles thinly and pats the rock he leans on. ‘Sit.’

John sits and bends down, pressing his cold, dry lips against the merman’s damp ones. The sea molluscs that cling to the rock make a crackling sound, loud in the quiet of the cove.

‘Not a good day, I observe.’

‘No,’ John sighs, glancing back up at where the Christmas lights twinkle in the village. ‘No, not really.’

‘Come with me,’ the merman says, his voice deep. His hand rests on John’s thigh. ‘Leave them.’

‘I... I can’t.’ John shivers in the cold. The merman rises further out of the water to wrap his arms around John’s body.

‘I would love you,’ the merman whispers, lips brushing the shell-like curve of John’s ear. ‘I would keep you safe.’

‘I know you would,’ John replies sadly. ‘I know.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in the [Measuring the Size...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/285104) ‘verse: everyone on earth has a limit of 167 words they can say, per day.

Sherlock learns Morse code and taps out messages with his lips to John’s throat and back and cheek. John misses nearly all of what Sherlock says but Sherlock never seems to mind. They curl together in bed and both hear the promises and declarations in the whispered sighs that fall from their lips, hours after their three-hundred-and-thirty-four words (combined) have gone.


	5. 1963

‘You’re quiet,’ John said, combing his fingers through Sherlock’s mop of hair as they watched the sun set, lying on the large rocks that led down to the beach.

‘I’m always quiet.’

John snorted.

‘I’m just... thinking,’ Sherlock amended, playing with the lighter that rested on his stomach. His beatnik jumper was doing little to protect him from the sea breeze and he shifted closer to John.

‘Penny for them, then.’

Sherlock held his palm out flat. Sighing, John dug in his pocket and pressed a penny into Sherlock’s hand. Sherlock grinned and pulled John into a kiss.

‘I don’t want you to go,’ he murmured a moment later, head still in John’s lap as he looked out towards the waves and the sky streaked with orange. ‘University, I mean. You’ll forget about me.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ John said after a moment’s silence.

‘Everything’s so very dull without you.’

John kissed him again. Sherlock lit them both a cigarette. The sun set.


End file.
